relationship to this property? Yes, the client is Circle of Life Personal Home Care LLC
by whose owner is Nidera Warren, and she should be present. Our vice chair has just a few questions
for you, sir. Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal or stipulate
to its accuracy? I do. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to
proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing? I did. Thank you. Please proceed.
I see you have already shared your screen. Thank you. Basically, I'm trying to get the
exhibit submission.
Um, panel members, um, uh, we have a zoning application, a referral, an appeal, um, site
control, uh, is maintained through a lease with the owner of the property who happens
to be Ms. Waring's sister. She may also be on at the meeting. There is a provision, if you go down
mid-screen, for the use of the premises in the lease as a personal home care business.
I'm highlighting it right now. That's the area in the lease.
A personal home care business is basically using a residential home to provide a living facility in a small, more intimate setting than, let's say, a nursing home without the medical coverage of a nursing home for basically older adults.
There are veterans, persons with Alzheimer's, other disabilities, and they live together, and it can be overnight stay or day stay there.
The patients often come from local hospitals, state agencies that are seeking care for older adults.
This group of population does not add or increase traffic or issues in the neighborhood.
They enhance it.
The operator, Ms. Waring, is trained in personal home care use.
She worked at Elwin Institute doing personal home care for about nine and a half years.
She currently works with families and children.
She currently works with families and children at CHOP in a technical capacity, but it's still in the care business.
And she has credentials, including over 100 hours of training in personal home care from the Pennsylvania State University and training in dementia care.
She has in the past operated in personal home care contacts to provide foods, medication, make sure the patients have medical treatment and get to their meetings, take their medication.
She does light housekeeping, cooking, and generalized care and assistance and loves doing it, has a calling in that area.
The neighborhood has a considerable amount of non-populated homes.
That is, some are lots, some are abandoned homes, and some are vacant homes.
she estimates estimated about 30 percent fall fell into that category in the immediate neighborhood
she went around to the neighbors to present the plan and got universal acceptance with the personal
home care use of the premises from the neighbors they signed the petition the petitions part of
this package. This is a layout of the home. There were no revised plans. There's photos
of the posting. Here are interior photos. This has been newly rehabbed.
There are RCO notices. This is her brochure, which explains the home in even more detail
than I have given. This is some credentials. She's training in dementia, personal home care
administration orientation, and she is a personal home care administrator from Penn State.
um here are her petitions that are signed by the neighbors or it's marked lot or vacant
um that is roughly the uh uh presentation that i wanted to share with mr langson mr langson
could you tell me what happened when they wanted to see the uh rco yes uh when they went to the
There was no opposition. One of the members attendees wanted to cancel the meeting because there was no attorney representation of Nadira Waring and the Circle of Light LLC.
see. I was not involved at that time. But the leader from the local RCO said to continue. There
was no opposition at any time. Okay. Thank you. Could you bring your client along, please, and
adopt your testimony? Yes. Can you come in, Ms. Waring? Raise your hand. Yeah. Ms. Waring has been
allowed to speak, please. Good morning. Good morning. Could you please state your name and
spell for the court stenographer?
Ms. Warren?
She's unmuted here.
Ms. Warren, could you state your name?
Okay. Mr. Langston, you're an officer of the court. We will accept your testament.
Thank you, sir.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Odessa Tate.
Hello, can you hear me?
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
Could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Good morning.
It's Odessa Tate, O-D-E-S-S-A-T-A-T-E.
O-D-E-S-S-A-T-A-T-E.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Are you a neighbor?
I am one of the RCUs.
Okay, please proceed.
So I can't quite contend with the lawyer's statement about there not being any opposition.
We did have the public hearing meeting in early December where there were no community members, but it was the RCOs.
A couple of the RCOs had objections, but we agreed and coming back to the table and having another discussion with Ms. Warren because we had additional questions to ask her in regards to the facility and bringing the facility into the community.
So, I had or the other RCOs, we had no additional information other than the location and that she wanted it to be a personal home care facility.
So, I guess it's a red flag, you know, not having an RCO letter or not having any information regarding the meeting and what happened because we were supposed to come back to the table.
and um today i wanted to explore continuance um in regards to this hearing and spoke to
colin who reached out to miss emerson in regards to a continuance okay but um we didn't have the
ability to have a proper evaluation you know for the personal care home and that is all right to
do so so i just wanted to make that comment and thank you thank you for uh calling in we do
appreciate your input um miss kate i just want to verify you're from um all in the family cdc
which is the coordinating rco in this case yes correct thank you thank you
um questions or comments from uh planning commission so ron bednar city planning the
property is indicated for residential use on the city plan we believe that proposed personal care
use will have no detrimental impact beyond what might be expected to have given its uh proposed
location therefore we recommend that the board grant this uh special exception mr langson uh
And we're going to hold this until there's an opportunity that you can talk with the RCO.
The case is closed other than hearing from the RCO and also giving you a chance to respond to what the RCO says.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, would you like to have a resumption hearing scheduled in this matter
after a follow-up with the RCO occurs?
So I was thinking it's closed
other than what the RCO would have to say
and Mr. Langston's response to it.
Okay, so we're just taking written responses.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, good, great.
Number eight, number four.
We're going to hear number four and number six together.
MI 2024 000 635 101 Bethlehem Pike
and MI 2024 000 637 105 Bethlehem Pike
Henry Clinton is the attorney
also could Leonard Reuter please come on to
from the Planning Commission
uh good morning may it please the board leonard f reuter uh for the city of philadelphia
hi do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do
thank you mr clinton morning mr chairman henry clinton h-e-n-r-y clinton c-l-i-n-t-o-n
and with me uh to my right your left is richard snowden he's the client who's having some
technical difficulties so he came into the office to participate in the zoom call thank you um do
you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do okay so what
we're going to do with this henry as i understand uh you'll go first um for your applicant and then
leonard will follow up and then i think leonard may call planning commission but please proceed
but if i could just just so it's clear this uh and boards council ms emerson uh mr clinton and i
have had a few discussions about this this is a remand to this board basically to get further
And remand to this board, basically, to get further information on, I guess, the availability of the MIHB.
information on
But so just just so that's in the record what we're doing.
All right. Thank you.
Please proceed, Henry.
So, Mr. Bergman, so there's two cases today, 101 Bethlehem Plague and 105.
The legal issues are the same with regard to both cases.
So I thought then for brevity purposes, I would do 101 and adopt everything for 105 rather than regurgitate information, if that's okay, Mr. Reuter and with the chairman.
Please.
So I'm just going to do a brief background and we'll get right into the heart of the issue.
So, and I don't know that it's necessary at this point, Mr. Chairman, to show my screen and go through the project again.
No, no, no, no, just follow up for the legal issues.
So we were before the board in June of 2023.
We had a number of projects where my client, Mr. Snowden, was basically downsizing commercial properties in Cessna Hill because of the inability to rent larger spaces and converting the back end of the commercial spaces into one bedroom apartments.
So there were two projects, 101 Bethlehem Pike and 105, where we did not get board approval.
Even though we had tremendous support, which I'll get to later, it didn't happen, and that's why we're back here in front of you to explain why we think it should have happened, not because the board made a mistake, but only because I think there was additional information the board didn't have, which hopefully we'll give you today, and that may be a deciding factor on where we go from here.
So we, after the board voted against the project, we filed an appeal.
The court, as Mr. Reuter just said, remanded it back to the court to basically, so that
we could contest the planning commission's issue with regard to the feasibility of the
client participating in the mixed income housing bonus.
And that's really what the case is all about today.
So we were trying to solve the vacancy issue on these two commercial properties, and there's apartments above, because, as I said at the outset, my client learned as a result of the pandemic, and this is a nationwide trend, that the first floor on commercial spaces, you don't need the back office that you used to have before.
And as a consequence, larger first floor commercial spaces on the avenue, Germantown Avenue, as well as Bethlehem Pike, remain vacant.
The two properties we're talking to you about today have been vacant for at least five years.
Even though my client is letting a local gallery use it rent-free just to have somebody in the space,
but it's not an income-driving mechanism that he's involved with right now.
So both projects, we were adding one unit, one apartment unit, and keeping the commercial space.
And that one apartment unit would be on the first floor.
individuals in the neighborhood who may be selling their home and want to stay in
Chestnut Hill would then be able to rent a one-bedroom apartment. So the refusals are
similar in that sense. And they're both zoned CMX1, but because they're adjacent to RS-A3,
the multifamily use was not permitted per the refusals. So the key thing about these properties
is that they are deemed significant on the National Register.
The other significant component, I think,
is at the time of our hearing in June of 23,
we had every significant group in Cessna Hill,
including neighbors as well as the councilwoman,
Cindy Bass, in support of what we were trying to do
because, again, no one likes vacant commercial space.
And our proposal wasn't going to change the facade
or the footprint or anything.
We're basically just going to add one apartment behind the commercial space.
So we had the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, Chestnut Hill Business Association, Chestnut Hill Business Improvement District, Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation, the Chestnut Hill Civic Association.
And as I said, Councilwoman Bass was also in support of the project.
So when it came time for the Planning Commission to give its comments, the Planning Commission,
and I'm going to read from the commentary, and Mr. Reuter, if I misquote anything, I'm
sure you'll stand to correct me.
So there was a lot of redundancy in terms of both 101 and 105.
The first sentence was, the comprehensive plan recommends no change in the commercial
mixed-use zoning of this property, which is CMX1.
So for 101, Planning Commission said this is a 5,560 square foot property, which could yield up to 13 dwelling units if the applicant chose to participate in the mixed income housing bonus.
That was for 101.
That was for 101.
105, Planning Commission said this is a 6,750-square-foot lot,
which could yield up to 17 dwelling units
if the applicant chose to participate in the next housing income bonus program.
So for 101, Planning Commission said you could do 13 dwelling units.
105, you could do 17 dwelling units.
Frankly, most developers would jump for joy with that.
My client is not that developer. He has developed historic properties in Chestnut Hill for over 40 years. He doesn't want to expand the footprint of the building. And frankly, if we attempted to expand the footprint of the building, even if the Planning Commission says it was by right, we would have a tremendous outpouring of opposition from everybody in the neighborhood, the Conservancy, the Chestnut Hill Business District, the Civic Association.
And I think they would probably move to make these buildings historically registered in Philadelphia so we wouldn't be able to do anything.
So we really were caught in a little bit of a crossfire here where we don't want to expand the buildings because it's not our game plan.
That's not the philosophy of the company.
And at the same time, we couldn't make a contribution, which we would love to do, for the trust fund because we're not permitted to.
So we were really in a situation where I didn't get a chance to really explain that to the board the first time around.
So Richard Snowden is here, and I just wanted to have him say a few things.
I'm not here to belabor the point, but that's really where we are.
If there was a mechanism for us to make a contribution, and if Mr. Reuter has any city fund or something where we could, we would certainly do that.
we're not looking to buy our way into approval, but I'm just trying to explain to the board
that we are willing participants in the program, but the program doesn't have a relief valve
to allow for an economic contribution to make this work. So we're still before the board with
our request to downsize the commercial space and put a one-bedroom apartment in the rear
of both of these buildings. So, Mr. Chairman, if you could swear in Mr. Snowden, I'm not going to
to be long. I'll ask him a few brief questions, and we'll move on. Snowden, please state your
name and spell for the court stenographer. Richard Wood Snowden. Spell, please, for the
court stenographer. Richard, R-I-C-H-A-R-D, last name Snowden, S-N-O-W, D as in David, E-N.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Please proceed, Mr. Clinton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, Mr. Snowden,
you're the principal of Bowman Properties Limited, correct? That's correct. And what's
the company's philosophy? We have restored and adaptively reused 100 buildings in the Germantown
Avenue, Chesson Hill Business District, beginning in 1981. Okay. And the two subject properties,
101 Bethlehem Pike and 105 Bethlehem Pike, 101, your company has owned since 2016, correct?